Beyond embodiment: An existential project of digital tectonics in the posthumanist discourses

Abstract

The paper is a theoretical review on the nature of tectonic expressions in the context of digital design and construction. By investigating the origin of digital tectonics as a methodological exploration to dissolve the oppositional relationship between the digital and the tectonic, the paper identifies the lack of focus on the essential task of tectonic expression-constructing embodied experience on the building form. Therefore, the paper firstly reviews how tectonic expression is understood in its traditional sense, particularly within its indispensable relationship to human body in order to construct the empathic perception of structural dynamics. Then, the paper reveals the disassociation between human body and tectonic form in the posthumanist mode of design-to-construction of the digital age. Further, by articulating the dynamic nature of embodiment in the posthumanist scenario where the body is constantly reconstructed by the technocultural conext of the living environment, the paper proposes a theoretical model arguing for a reinterpretation of both the nature and the task of digital tectonics in order to reclaim the embodied experience in the digital age. Digital tectonics becomes an existential project that must be designed within its mutual determining relationship with the historical-cultural construction of the body-self.